Google To Close Spanish News Service

Online search engine Google has said that a new law is forcing it to close its news service in Spain.Google News will close in the country on 16 December before the law, which allows Spanish publications to charge if their content is shown on the site, comes into effect in January.

The online giant has argued against the ruling saying it is unsustainable as it makes no money from the service and they don’t put any advertising on the site.

In a blog post, the head of Google News, Richard Gingras said: “It’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain.”

He added: “Publishers can choose whether or not they want their articles to appear in Google News — and the vast majority choose to be included for very good reason.

“Google News creates real value for these publications by driving people to their websites, which in turn helps generate advertising revenues.”

The Google News service is available in over 70 international editions in 35 languages and accounts for over 80% of the European search market.

In May, a European court ruling forced Google to delete some results from its search engine at the request of its users if the information was inadequate or no longer relevant.

The “right to be forgotten” has led to thousands of requests a month to remove results showing information including criminal records, embarrassing photos, instances of online bullying and negative press stories.